Chapter 46 #3
By the time we finished, Webb had disappeared from my immediate problem list, but the hollow place beneath my anger remained exactly where it had been. Priest could help me clean up what I’d done tonight. He couldn’t change why I’d done it.
Before he left, he stopped beside his truck and looked back at me. “Romeo.”
“Yeah?”
“Give her my love.”
The simple fucking words caught me harder than they should have.
“I will.”
Then he drove away, and I stood alone in the dark with Fiona’s voice still lodged inside my head.
He would have if you hadn’t been here.
I wasn’t making the mistake of not being there again.
I was clean by the time I made it back to Granny’s, but the shower and fresh clothes hadn’t done a fucking thing about what was still crawling around beneath my skin. Fiona’s voice had followed me through every mile back to Rosewood, quieter now but no easier to ignore.
He would have if you hadn’t been here.
I barely had time to knock before the door opened.
Fiona stood on the other side in a pair of sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her eyes found mine, widened, and then she was moving. She threw her arms around my neck so hard I rocked back a step before catching her against me.
“You came back.”
The relief in her voice cut straight through me. I wrapped both arms around her and buried my face in her hair, breathing her in because I fucking needed to. Warm skin. Shampoo. Fiona. Alive and standing in my arms where she belonged.
“I promised you I would.”
She held me tighter, and the way her body softened against mine told me she hadn’t been doing much better since I left. I felt like an asshole all over again for walking away from her, even knowing exactly why I’d done it.
Granny appeared behind her in the hallway wearing a robe and an expression that said she’d been waiting up too.
Her eyes moved over me once, taking in the fresh clothes and damp hair.
Her gaze held mine for a beat longer than necessary, and the faintest nod told me she’d already put the pieces together and approved of the way I’d handled it.
Fiona finally loosened her arms enough to look at me, but she didn’t let go completely. “You’re staying, right?”
There was still too much fear hiding beneath the question.
I looked over her head at Granny.
She closed her eyes and sighed like the two of us had personally shortened her life by several years. “Plant your ass on that couch and keep it there.”
Relief moved across Fiona’s face before I could answer. She took my hand and pulled me inside as though the matter had already been settled.
Apparently, it had.
I let her drag me to the couch and sat beside her.
Fiona immediately curled into my side, tucking herself beneath my arm with her cheek against my chest and her legs over mine.
The simple trust in it tightened something deep inside me.
A few hours ago, I had been congratulating myself for giving her space.
Now even the few inches between where I ended and she began felt like too fucking much.
Granny stood in front of us with her arms crossed. “I mean it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That couch.”
I fought the urge to smile because she was dead serious, and because I needed to be very fucking careful with what came out of my mouth.
“You won’t catch me anywhere else in this house tonight.”
Granny stared at me.
I kept my face innocent.
Fiona shifted against me, either too tired to notice what I’d actually said or too content with the answer to examine it.
Granny’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a slippery bastard.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Jasper,” Fiona murmured against my chest, and there was enough sleepy reproach in my name that I kissed the top of her head.
“I’m behaving, Ma Belle.”
Granny clearly had doubts, but exhaustion finally won. She pointed at me once more before heading toward the stairs. “Both of you need some sleep.”
I waited until her footsteps disappeared above us and the bedroom door closed.
Fiona stayed tucked against me, one hand curled into the front of my shirt, and for a while, I simply held her.
I listened to the old house settle around us and felt her breathing gradually even out, though every so often her fingers tightened as if some part of her was still checking that I hadn’t disappeared.
I wasn’t going to.
Not the way she thought.
When enough time had passed that I was certain Granny was asleep, I looked down at Fiona. Her eyes were closed, but the moment I brushed my fingers through her hair they opened.
“Fiona, baby.”
She tipped her face up toward mine, still drowsy, trusting me so completely it nearly made what I was about to do harder.
Nearly.
I had spent months going slow.
I was fucking done with slow.
“Go pack a bag, Ma Belle.”
Sleep disappeared from her eyes. “What?”
I kept my arm around her and held her gaze.
“Go get dressed and pack a bag.”
Her brows drew together. “Why?”
Because I had been five minutes away from being too late. Because fifteen hundred miles had stopped feeling like distance and started feeling like negligence. Because Marcus Webb was dead and there would always be another threat I couldn’t stop from Nebraska.
I brushed my thumb across her cheek.
“We’re leaving.”